Washington has trailed to Arizona before, but unlike week one of the NFL season there was no Sam Howell or Brian Robinson Jr. to save the nation’s capital. This was hockey, a game played on the ice rink and not gridiron and the Washington Capitals got spanked by the Arizona Coyotes by a final of 6-0 on Monday night at Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University.
In years past this would’ve been an embarrassing loss. I wouldn’t say it was embarrassing for the Capitals. At this point nothing surprises us anymore. Even the news of Evgeny Kuznetsov being a healthy scratch was not a surprise.
For the Coyotes they are on a roll. They have not only won five in a row, but all five of their wins literally came from the last five teams to hoist the Stanley Cup. The teams are listed in the next paragraph with their Cup years in parentheses.
That’s right they’ve beaten the Vegas Golden Knights (2023), the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020 and 2021), the Colorado Avalanche (2022), the St. Louis Blues (2019), and the Washington Capitals (2018).
Now if this isn’t the first time in NHL history this has happened for a team THAT does indeed surprise me.
Logan Cooley struck first for the Coyotes on the power play at 8:46. It also came on their first shot of the game. They scored again on their second shot at 10:02, this time from Michael Carcone.
Nick Schmaltz made it 3-0 on the power play at 14:15 which ended Darcy Kuemper’s night. He finished with two saves on five shots. In was Charlie Lindgren the rest of the way. It didn’t change much.
Schmaltz added his second goal of the game at 17:13 to make it 4-0. At 18:39 it was 5-0 thanks to Jason Zucker. At 16:54 in the second period the Coyotes made it 6-0 with a goal from Nick Bjugstad.
Coyotes had the edge in shots 27-26 overall as well as 10-9 in the first period and 9-8 in the second. In the third it was the Caps with the 9-8 edge in shots.
The Caps are back home on Thursday night at 8 p.m. against the Dallas Stars on ESPN.